Download Bulletin 11th April 2021
Fr Hugh’s Homily for 2nd Sunday of Easter
There’s a convent of sisters at Ein Karem, where the Visitation is said to have taken place, just outside Jerusalem. The sisters welcome people of all faiths to their guest house, they employ people from Israel and Palestine to work there. When they go into the chapel they sing the psalms in Hebrew, just as they have been sung for many centuries. In ancient times, when Jews came to Jerusalem on pilgrimage they prayed them together as they walked or as they entered the Temple, and you can imagine a cantor leading them in today’s psalm, a psalm for the Feast of Tabernacles, and then responding to each line, ‘His love has no end.’ As you walk in the garden at Ein Karem which is high up overlooking a valley, it is really a place of peace. A place of harmony. As Jesus begins his new Church in today’s gospel, he begins it with a gift of peace. The Church has to be a place of peace (however much we have failed over the years.) But this has to be our aim….